Trump Threatens Europe Over ‘Hostile Act’ Amid Canada Row

Championing the burgeoning E.U. alliance, Carney focused on what he said were shared values between Canada and the bloc, insisting: “We are not fair-weather allies. We believe that our ​prosperity grows when ⁠it is shared.” 

“I’m not proposing a third bloc in order to become a ‘great power’ rival, only with better manners,” Carney continued. “We do not seek power to dominate others. On the contrary, we are pursuing resilience so no one can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity, or undermine our freedoms, our democracies, our rule of law.”

Carney, who began his speech in French—one of Canada’s official languages—before continuing in English, with splatterings of German, welcomed how European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had on Wednesday opened the door for Canada becoming an “associate member” of the 27-member bloc.  

When speaking about forging closer ties with the E.U., Carney referenced seeking strategic autonomy through “deep co-operation in the full range of strategic capabilities, including critical minerals, defense industrial capacity, AI and compute, energy security, space and payments.” He insisted Canada and Europe must not be dependent on “individual nations or individual companies” as this “creates vulnerabilities, particularly when supposedly global companies prove national in the breach.”